Mother of missing 13-year-old says someone knows where he is

JERRY McBRIDE/Durango Herald
“Someone knows where he is,” Elaine Redwine, right, said Friday during an interview at a friend’s home. Searchers continue to look for Redwine’s son, Dylan, 13. Elaine Redwine’s son Cory Redwine, 21, sits next to her.

JERRY McBRIDE/Durango Herald
“Someone knows where he is,” Elaine Redwine, right, said Friday during an interview at a friend’s home. Searchers continue to look for Redwine’s son, Dylan, 13. Elaine Redwine’s son Cory Redwine, 21, sits next to her.

IGNACIO – The mother of a 13-year-old boy, whom authorities have been searching for since he disappeared Monday around Vallecito, is convinced he didn’t vanish on his own volition.

“He didn’t go on his own,” Elaine Redwine said of her son, Dylan, who was visiting his father, Mark Redwine, during Thanksgiving break.

The couple are divorced and she lives in Colorado Springs.

“Dylan wouldn’t have left willingly,” Redwine said during an interview at the home of a friend Friday afternoon. “If there was any way to communicate he would have called.”

La Plata County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Dan Bender said Mark Redwine told investigators that he saw his son Monday about 7:30 a.m. but that the boy was gone when he returned about 11:30 a.m., after running errands.

A message left on Mark Redwine’s cellphone Friday was not returned.

The telephone at his residence at 2343 County Road 500 rang until it cut off.

Dylan was picked up Sunday by his father at Durango-La Plata County Airport, his mother said Friday. Dylan announced his arrival in a text message and ended it with the emoticon that is interpreted as a scowl, she said.

She declined to talk about her former spouse except to say he rarely exercised his visitation rights.

The last time Dylan visited Vallecito from Colorado Springs, where she moved this summer, was on Labor Day weekend, Redwine said.

Dylan was happy in Colorado Springs, where he began eighth grade in August, she said. He had many friends and hung out at Skate City, a roller skating rink.

Bender said five sheriff’s investigators are working the case.

They have contacted the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, he said.

Dylan’s photo was featured Friday on the website of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Bender said no possibility has been discarded.

“This is the fifth day Dylan has been missing, with few clues to work from,” Bender said. “We have to consider everything from foul play to a runaway.”

But Elaine Redwine won’t hear of Dylan being a runaway and discounts reported sightings of the boy Monday and Tuesday afternoons.

A Vallecito resident who knows Dylan reported seeing him walking with another boy of about the same age on Monday. Each boy had a backpack.

Redwine believes her son’s disappearance was involuntary. “Someone knows where he is,” she said.

The last time anyone she knows talked to Dylan was Sunday night, Redwine said. Dylan and a friend from Bayfield were to meet early Monday, she said.

Dylan didn’t like the remoteness of Vallecito, his mother said. He was oriented to Bayfield, where he had gone to school until this fall and where he had friends, she said.

“Dylan is a generational kid and tech savvy,” Redwine said. “He wouldn’t have gone off to the mountains to pitch a tent or build a fire.”

But his absence is a heart-rending mystery, Redwine said.

Members of La Plata County Search and Rescue looked for Dylan on Monday night and all day Tuesday, using ground search teams and dogs.

Community members have turned out in force to form search parties that have covered an ever-expanding grid around Vallecito and Bayfield.

They have searched abandoned buildings and barns and the surrounding mountains.